THE PROBLEM SOLVING APPROACH

We have seen that the consultant's first task is to define the questions that need to be answered to resolve the client's predicament and that the idea of 'levels of intervention' can direct attention to the type of questions to be asked. We have also noted that it is helpful to have a process that will enable the questions to be addressed, and this is set out below.

Outline of the Approach

We noted earlier that consultants and clients arrive at situations with preconceptions, and these, together with experience and expertise, may provide some promising routes for following up solutions. The problem solving method is one adapted from a method familiar to scientists: that of developing hypotheses, which are then tested through the collection of suitable data.

In what follows, I shall define an assumption as valid: it does not need to be checked out. In contrast, I shall define a hypothesis as a supposition that is only conjectural, that is, it needs to be checked out before we can accept it. A hypothesis is a contention; some people find it helpful to preface it, like a debating topic, with the words, 'This house believes...', or even more simply with the word 'perhaps'. An assumption can be taken as read, but a hypothesis needs data collection to verify it. For example, take the statement, 'It is raining'; if it is an assumption, you will take it to be true and take an umbrella if you go out. If it is a hypothesis ('Perhaps it is raining') this implies that you are not sure whether it is indeed raining, and may wish to check before taking your umbrella.

The way in which preconceptions can be accommodated is by regarding them as hypotheses; similarly, all the ideas you have at the start of a project can provide fuel for hypotheses. Hypotheses provide a guide to data collection, which is directed towards checking them out. The problem solving approach based on hypotheses is shown in Figure 6.7.

Figure 6.7: The problem solving approach

The approach starts with hypotheses, which are generated by creative thinking. This creative stage is followed by an evaluative stage in which you select which hypotheses to investigate. Data collection is directed at verifying these selected hypotheses; during data collection you may also come up with further hypotheses. Finally, you arrive at conclusions. A conclusion can be thought of as a proven hypothesis; conversely a hypothesis can be thought of as a provisional conclusion.

Creative Thinking in Consultancy

Creative thinking was mentioned in the previous section as a method of creating hypotheses. If there is a characteristic that distinguishes excellent consultants from the merely good, it is that of creativity. One consultant defines creativity as, 'that which is obvious only in retrospect'. My own experience endorses this when working with a colleague or client, whose insight provides the key to finding the way forward in resolving a problem. Or, in my own work, having struggled with defining a way forward, stumbling on the key and reflecting, 'Why on earth didn't I think of that before - it seems so obvious (now!).'

People are naturally creative but are often educated out of it. One has only to look at a group of children playing anywhere in the world to realize that creativity is an innate human characteristic. As an adult, to become more creative you must reduce the barriers to creativity. Roger von Oech in his book A Whack on the Side of the Head (1990) identifies ten barriers to creative thinking. They are shown below:

The right answer	That's not logical
Follow the rules	Be practical
Avoid ambiguity	To err is wrong
Play is frivolous	That is not my area
Don't be foolish	I am not creative

All these rules are appropriate at some time or another. For example, we may not be very enthusiastic to hear a surgeon describe the operation he is about to carry out on us as outside his specialization, or that he might be experimenting with a new technique that has a high risk of failure compared with other ones that he might use. Similarly, we do not want our bankers to be using our money in risky and creative ways if it means that we might lose it. Creativity, therefore, has to be applied appropriately. There is a time to be creative, using divergent thinking; there is a time to be analytical, evaluating the ideas created.

Typically, though, people working in groups mix creative and evaluative thinking. Someone will come up with an idea, which will then be evaluated by the whole group. (Sometimes evaluation consists in completely overlooking it!) The process that is being used is that of creating an idea and then evaluating it, repeating the process as required.

This process of cycling between creative thinking and then evaluative thinking inhibits creativity. Many of the 'barriers to creativity' quoted above are quite appropriate when engaged in evaluative thinking. When engaging in mixed thinking, sometimes the barriers will be in place, some of the time they will be suspended. The problem for a participant in a problem solving meeting is discerning whether they are in place or suspended; the safe bet is to assume that they are in place. What therefore happens is that evaluative thinking takes over and few ideas are created.

A useful method of dealing with this difficulty is to separate the idea creation process from that of evaluation, into two explicit stages. First you generate lots of ideas, and then only after you have finished this stage do you pick out the ones that merit further investigation. This latter process of separated thinking is used in brainstorming techniques. In brainstorming there is a creative period, where the aim is to create a large quantity of ideas - not quality, because quality implies evaluation. Evaluation is suspended until a later analytical period.

Techniques for Creating Ideas

The classic approach to brainstorming suggests various techniques for generating ideas. One such is 'freewheeling' - just noting ideas as they pop into your head. Another is (when working in a group) to let an idea suggested by one person stimulate others.

Both these techniques, however, start with some notion of the idea under consideration and move on from there. An alternative technique is to start from 'somewhere completely different' and see whether that gives you new insights. For instance, you could start with a completely random set of words, and see how they might relate to the problem under consideration. (Sometimes this is known as 'random entry technique'.) Take a few of the words that have been used in the last few pages:

working	random
motion	completely
alternatives	struggled

Consider the problem quoted above of improving performance at International Cutlery Company. You would then try to see if any of the words above might provide an insight that you previously had not considered. What relationship might there be, for example, between 'struggled' and 'improving performance'? Setting a group exercise where operations are challenged to find ways of improving performance might be an idea linking the two.

Another technique is to use metaphor or analogy; for example, what insights can we get if this problem is thought of as a water distribution system? A piece of music? A meal? And there are other techniques, covered in many books. Simon Majaro's 1988 book The Creative Gap is to be particularly recommended. The first step in the technique is to develop hypotheses; these should vary according to the level of intervention. Figure 6.8 shows the assumptions and hypotheses for each level.

Level	Assumptions	Hypotheses
1	There is a predicament that merits attention	What purposes this implies
2	The purposes to be achieved	The problems that stand in the way of achieving this purpose
3	The problems that must be addressed	How they might be resolved
4	The solutions that must be put in place	How they might best be implemented

Figure 6.8: Assumptions and hypotheses at each level of intervention

Points to note are:

• Hypotheses at a given level of intervention are related to the outputs for that level.

• The hypotheses for one level are assumptions for the next, hence each level should be dealt with as a separate phase.

• If your thinking is to be 'one degree of freedom more than that of the client', then what you do is to treat the client's assumptions as hypotheses.

To illustrate these processes we will again refer to the International Cutlery Company case study set out above. Assume that at the end of his visit, John Smith, the consultant, has decided to accept the GM's stated purpose of improving productivity so there is no need for intervention at level 1. This purpose therefore is the assumption underlying level 2, and so John Smith would start at this level by using creative thinking to develop hypotheses about the issues that relate to low productivity. He would derive these hypotheses from his observations during his visit, his knowledge and previous experience and his imagination.

John Smith may, of course, have created ideas that are not hypotheses about issues, but relate to other levels of intervention; for example, 'The GM is useless and should be fired.' This is a hypothesis about a solution; it is appropriate for level 3, but not for level 2 at which John Smith is currently working. He can use it, though, to identify further problems by asking, 'To what problem would this solution relate?' This solution is about 'the quality of management', so he could add 'quality of management' as a further problem he might investigate.

Practical Hints in Defining Hypotheses

Some practical tips in carrying out this process follow. If you are working in a group in developing ideas, it is common to use a flip chart to record them. When they are coming thick and fast, it is difficult for whoever is doing the writing to get down all the detail. In such circumstances, it is usual practice to abbreviate or to abstract the ideas. This is a dangerous practice. By abstraction or abbreviation, much of the richness of the ideas is lost and where they are expressed imprecisely, it becomes very difficult to verify them (as we shall see when we come to looking at data collection).

Sometimes the reverse is the case. When recording ideas during a creative session, those responsible for writing them down often behave as if ink was highly expensive! So write down all the ideas and then evaluate them; if the scribe acts as editor, it means that the evaluation is happening prematurely. Don't worry if you have some ideas that appear totally irrelevant during the initial trawl for them; they can be edited out later.

Following up every hypothesis is not practical or necessary, so some process of hypothesis selection is required. This is where you have to exercise your judgement, based on your expertise. The stages involved in selecting which hypotheses are to be pursued are as follows:

1. Disregard those hypotheses that are not relevant to the issues being studied. If the process of hypothesis creation has been dealt with properly, lots of ideas will have been recorded that have very little relevance to the scope of the project. By a process of inspection, disregard those that seem completely irrelevant. If in doubt, leave the ideas in.

2. Assess the remainder according to their relevance and probability. For example at ICC, salespeople's motivation may be an issue, but it does not appear immediately relevant to the purpose of increasing productivity. John Smith may also have hypothesised that, 'Competing manufacturers are engaged in sabotage.' This is improbable, so again it is one that would not be pursued as a matter of priority.

3. Hypotheses should be then classified into three categories:

   - A	Those that must be investigated because they are of central importance.
   - C	Those that could be investigated, but only if there was time. (The missing category, B, is for those that you are unsure whether to put into category A or C.)

After this process, you should have a shortlist of hypotheses that you are going to follow up through the process of data collection. It is a good idea at this point to take stock of your list of hypotheses; do they seem sufficient to you?

This is a sort of reality test; if you feel that having gone through this process you would still want to explore some items outside those hypotheses, it usually means that there is a hypothesis that you have not yet articulated. If you feel unhappy, therefore, think carefully through what you have done so far. Is there anything missing from the logic? If so, what is it?